Min Lee - Pachinko

“Etsuko-chan, Hana will be okay. Nigel’s girlfriend is fine. They might get married after college. That’s what he said—”

“No, no. It’s not that. I’m just so sorry that you might have thought that I didn’t want to be your mother.” She clutched her stomach, and she tried to regulate her breath. “I’ve hurt so many people. And you’re such a good boy, Solomon. I wish I could take credit for you.”

His dark, straight hair clung to the sides of his face, and he didn’t brush it away. His eyes strained with worry.

“But I was born today, and isn’t it funny how no one gets to remember that moment and who was there? It’s all what’s told to you. You’re here now. You are a mother to me.”

Etsuko covered her mouth with her open palm and let his words go through her. Somewhere after being sorry, there had to be another day, and even after a conviction, there could be good in the judgment. At last, Etsuko shut off the water and put down the swollen yellow sponge in the sink. The curved brass spout let go its last few drops, and the kitchen grew silent. Etsuko reached over to hold the child on his birthday.

Osaka, 1979

Sunja had left her son and grandson Solomon in Yokohama and returned to Osaka when she learned that her mother, Yangjin, had stomach cancer. Through fall and winter, Sunja slept at the foot of her mother’s pallet to relieve her exhausted sister-in-law, Kyunghee, who had been nursing Yangjin faithfully after her own husband, Yoseb, finally died.

Yangjin lived on her thick cotton pallet, more or less immobile, in the front room, which had effectively become her bedroom. The largest room in the house smelled of eucalyptus and tangerines. The floor had been lined recently with fresh tatami mats, and a double row of greenery in ceramic pots flourished by the two sparkling windows. The large basket by the pallet, filled to the brim with Kyushu tangerines — a costly gift from fellow parishioners at the Korean church in Osaka — released a glorious scent. The new Sony color television was on, its volume low, as the three women waited to watch Yangjin’s favorite program, Other Lands .

Sunja sat on the floor beside her mother, who was sitting up as well as she could, and Kyunghee remained at her usual place on the other side of the pallet by Yangjin’s head. Both Sunja and Kyunghee were knitting sections of a navy woolen sweater for Solomon.

Strangely, as Yangjin’s limbs and joints quit, one after the other, and as her muscles softened into jelly, her mind felt clearer and more free. She could imagine leaving her body to run swiftly like a deer. Yet in life, she could hardly move at all; she could barely eat anything recognizable as food. Nevertheless, the unexpected dividend of this illness was that for the first time in her life, perhaps since the moment she was able to walk and perform any chores, Yangjin felt no compulsion to labor. It was no longer possible to cook meals, wash dishes, sweep the floors, sew clothing, scrub toilets, tend to the children, do laundry, make food to sell, or do whatever else needed doing. Her job was to rest before dying. All she had to do was nothing at all. At best, she had a few days left.

Yangjin wasn’t sure what happened after this was over — but she felt she would go home either to all those who had died before or to Yesu Kuristo and his kingdom. She wanted to see her husband, Hoonie, again; once, in church, she’d heard a sermon that said that in heaven, the lame could walk and the blind could see. Her husband had opposed the idea of God, but she hoped that if there was a God, He would understand that Hoonie was a good man who had endured enough with the restrictions of his body and deserved to be well. Whenever Yangjin tried to talk about dying, Kyunghee and Sunja would change the subject.

“So did you send the money to Solomon?” Yangjin asked. “I wanted you to send crisp, new bills from the bank.”

“Yes, I sent it yesterday,” Sunja replied, adjusting her mother’s pillow so she could see the monitor better.

“When will he get it? I haven’t heard from him.”

“ Umma , he’ll get the card tonight or tomorrow.”

Solomon hadn’t phoned to speak to his great-grandmother this week, but that was understandable. He had just had a big birthday party, and Sunja was the one who would have reminded him to write a letter or to phone someone to say thank you or just to check in on them. “He’s probably busy with school. I’ll phone later.”

“So is the singer really a famous talent?” Yangjin asked. Mozasu had furnished the house and provided for their upkeep ever since the women closed their confection business; it was still difficult for Yangjin to grasp that her grandson Mozasu could have so much money that he could hire pop stars for his son’s birthday party.

“That must be so expensive! Is he really a celebrity?”

“Well, that’s what Etsuko said.” Sunja was also curious as to how Solomon was faring; he would have had to get his identification card for the first time. She had been worried about that.

The show came on, and Kyunghee bolted up to adjust the antenna. The picture improved. The familiar Japanese folk music for the program drifted into the room.

“Where will Higuchi-san go today?” Yangjin smiled broadly.

In Other Lands , the interviewer Higuchi-san, a spry, ageless woman with dyed black hair, traveled all over the globe and interviewed Japanese people who had immigrated to other lands. The interviewer was no ordinary woman of her generation; she was unmarried, childless, and a skilled world-traveling journalist who could ask any intimate question. She was reputed to have Korean blood, and the rumor alone was enough for Yangjin and Kyunghee to find Higuchi-san’s pluck and wanderlust relatable. They were devoted to her. When the women still ran their little confection shop, they’d rush straight home as soon as they closed to avoid missing even a minute of the program. Sunja had never been interested in the show, but now she sat through it for her mother’s sake.

“Pillows!” Yangjin cried, and Sunja fixed them.

Kyunghee clapped her hands as the opening credits rolled. Despite all the restrictions, she had always hoped that Higuchi-san could somehow go to North Korea. Koh Hansu had told her husband that her parents and in-laws were dead, yet she still yearned to hear news of home. Also, she wanted to know if Kim Changho was safe. No matter how many sad stories she heard from the others whose family members had gone back, she could not imagine that the handsome young man with the thick eyeglasses had died.

As the opening music faded, a disembodied male voice announced that today, Higuchi-san was in Medellín to meet an impressive farming family who now owned the largest chicken farm in Colombia. Higuchi-san, wearing a light-colored raincoat and her famous green boshi , marveled how the Wakamura family had decided to migrate to Latin America at the end of the nineteenth century and how well they had raised their children to be good Japanese in the world. “ Minna nihongo hanase-masu !” Higuchi-san’s voice was full of wonder and admiration.

The camera zoomed in on Señora Wakamura, the surviving matriarch, a tiny, wrinkled woman who looked far older than her actual age of sixty-seven. Her large, sloping eyes, buried beneath layers of crepey, folded skin, appeared wise and thoughtful. Like her siblings, she was born in Medellín.

“Things were very difficult for my parents, of course. They didn’t speak Spanish and didn’t know anything about chickens. Father died of a heart attack when I was six, then Mother raised us by herself. My oldest brother stayed here with our mother, but our other two brothers went to study in Montreal, then returned. My sisters and I worked on the farm.”